Lead Security Architect (Pre-sales) in Slough

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced Cyber & AI Security Sales Lead to play a pivotal role in driving growth across an expanding Digital Services capability. This position is suited to an experienced presales, sales leadership or business development professional with a strong understanding of cyber security and emerging AI security solutions.

The successful candidate will create market visibility, generate demand and lead strategic presales activity across Cyber & AI Security offerings. Acting as the bridge between customers, product teams and service delivery functions, they will help transform market insight into commercial opportunities and successful outcomes.

This is a senior, hands-on role requiring someone who is comfortable leading complex security sales cycles from opportunity identification through to proposal and customer engagement, while engaging confidently with senior stakeholders across cyber security, AI security and cloud security domains. The role offers the opportunity to shape strategy, influence product direction and help establish a market-leading Cyber & AI Security capability.

• Go-to-Market Strategy, Brand Visibility and Thought Leadership
  • Develop and deliver internal and external go-to-market strategies and campaigns for Cyber & AI Security offerings.
  • Create compelling and differentiated value propositions across security services, products and accelerators.
  • Drive thought leadership initiatives through webinars, industry events, conferences, articles and community engagement.
  • Ensure marketing collateral, online presence and customer-facing materials effectively showcase the breadth of Cyber & AI Security capabilities and success stories.
  • Build awareness and market credibility to generate qualified demand and pipeline growth.
• Presales Leadership and Bid Management
  • Leading end-to-end proposal activity for Cyber & AI Security opportunities.
  • Shaping compelling customer solutions and coordinating inputs from product, technical and service teams.
  • Developing and maintaining high-quality sales collateral, proposal assets, case studies and reusable bid content.
  • Contributing Cyber & AI Security expertise into larger cross-functional and multi-sector opportunities.
  • Collaborating with architects and engineers to incorporate technical depth while retaining ownership of the overall sales narrative and customer proposition.
• Pipeline Development and Opportunity Management
  • Build and maintain visibility across the Cyber & AI Security sales pipeline.
  • Partner with account teams and business development leads to identify opportunities for growth, upselling and cross-selling.
  • Facilitate regular opportunity review sessions to drive progression and remove barriers to success.
  • Analyse customer feedback and market trends to identify emerging themes and opportunities for future services and products.
• Strategic Partnerships and Microsoft Engagement
  • Managing strategic relationships with Microsoft and other technology partners.
  • Supporting co-sell initiatives, partner programmes and collaborative marketing activities.
  • Leveraging partner ecosystems and marketplaces to generate additional pipeline opportunities.
  • Working closely with internal stakeholders to maximise partner-led growth initiatives.
• Customer Engagement and Commercial Growth
  • Building trusted relationships with senior customer stakeholders.
  • Acting as a key point of contact throughout presales and early delivery phases.
  • Identifying additional growth opportunities within existing customer engagements.
  • Translating successful outcomes into compelling customer stories, case studies and reference materials.
  • Feeding customer insight, market intelligence and win/loss analysis into future strategy development.

The successful candidate will demonstrate:

• Significant experience within technical presales, sales leadership or business development roles across cyber security consulting, platforms or services.
• Strong knowledge of Cyber Security, AI Security and Cloud Security principles.
• A practical understanding of areas such as:
  • Cloud platforms including AWS and Azure
  • Application and platform security
  • Security threats and attack vectors including OWASP Top 10
  • Security frameworks and standards including NCSC, NIST, CIS, PCI DSS, GDPR, OWASP ASVS and SOC2
• Strong commercial awareness with a clear understanding of revenue generation, sales pipelines, risk and delivery models.
• Proven experience leading and converting complex bids and proposals.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement, communication and influencing skills, with the ability to engage executive audiences and technical teams alike.
• Experience working across multiple sectors and collaborating with Sales, Marketing and technical delivery functions.
• The ability to effectively work with and mentor technical specialists within presales environments.

The following would be advantageous:

• Experience working with Microsoft or other major cloud and security providers within co-sell or partner-led models.
• Previous involvement in thought leadership activities including industry speaking engagements, blogs or webinars.
• Experience operating within Agile delivery environments.
• An understanding of how presales decisions impact delivery capability, utilisation and workforce planning.